The composter and humus production
The composter is a building on the Main farm that turns collected leaves into humus. Humus then raises the yield from cultivated fields, so your harvest pays off a little more. The building unlocks at player level 6 and can be upgraded all the way to level eight, which dramatically cuts the time needed for one batch of humus.
It's worth having the composter standing from the moment it unlocks, because the first level costs only a few hundred Dollars and gives you a steady supply of humus for your fields. I'd take the upgrades to higher levels step by step, based on how many Leaves I actually have, because the top level needs player level 149 and tens of millions of Dollars.
The composter turns leaves into humus for a better harvest
The composter stands only on the Main farm and takes up an area of 5x3 tiles. It unlocks at player level 6, so you'll come across it fairly early in the game.
Its only job is to process Leaves into humus. Humus is then used on cultivated fields and, according to the game's own hint, raises their yield – in other words how much you end up getting from the harvest.
Building and upgrading the composter gets steadily more expensive
The building has eight levels. The cost, the build time and the number of workers needed to finish it all climb sharply with every level, as the numbers for the first and the top level show.
| Property | Level 1 | Max. level (8) |
| Build/upgrade cost | 700 Dollars | 62,500,000 Dollars |
| Build time | 7 minutes | 4 days 12 hours |
| Workers needed | 2 | 15 |
| Humus recipe | 20 Leaves → 1 humus + 600 experience points | 11 Leaves → 1 humus + 600 experience points |
| Length of one production cycle | 4 hours | 21 minutes |
To take the composter all the way to the maximum eighth level I need player level 149, so it's more of a goal for a well established farm than something I'll deal with right at the start.
The humus recipe speeds up a lot at higher levels
At the first level the composter uses 20 Leaves for one batch of humus and production takes 4 hours. At the maximum eighth level 11 Leaves are enough and the same batch is done in 21 minutes – at both levels one cycle gives you 1 humus and 600 experience points.
Converted to an hourly rate, the first level squeezes out roughly a quarter of a batch of humus per hour, while at max it's more than eleven times faster. The lower Leaves cost per batch also means the same stock of leaves lasts for more cycles.
What I've learned about the composter on my farm
- Level 1 costs just 700 Dollars and goes up in 7 minutes, so I treat it as an automatic build the moment it unlocks.
- I handle the higher levels gradually – there's no point pouring 62.5 million Dollars and 15 workers into it if I don't have enough Leaves to keep the composter busy anyway.
- What I mainly watch is whether I run out of humus before I get around to working my fields – if I do, it's time for an upgrade, because a shorter production cycle (21 minutes at max instead of 4 hours at level one) refills my stock far quicker.
